Changes
by UnagiKeki
Summary: A few lives get shuffled in the Great mess of Fate, and who's to be the wiser? Some of your favorite characters get a different end then the ones you knew, and even fewer of them come out alive; first arc, highly open to feedback. Let it fly, guys.
1. Shimon

**Author's Note: I acknowledge both Masashi Kishimoto's ownership of Naruto and his genius talent; but I'm just gonna play with his characters for a while, and see what becomes of them. If it was illegal, this entire site would be down, so haha, flamers.**

**And since some people have no patience: Hinata was kidnapped by the Cloud village at any early age; Anko adopts Naruto after Iruka's death; Gaara was born a girl. Tenten is the daughter of a Hi no kuni daimyo, who sees her parents killed by Akatsuki; and Rock Lee is going to trade a very interesting ability with Sasuke. There will be pairings, but the concentration in this first arc will mainly be the megalomaniac musings of these poor, altered kids, plus all the diplomatic fun of the clashing Shinobi nations. It's gonna go deep, rest assured.**

**Also, I am not above begging. PLEASE, PLEASE READ THIS STORY AND CLICK THE GREEN BUTTON WHEN YOU'RE DONE, OH BEST BELOVED VISITOR. -bows- **

* * *

_Prelude to an Arson_

Forget the things you used to believe in.

There's nothing more shiftless than this world, he says; pits of snakes and dog demons, waiting, waiting. The man casts a look over his shoulder, spots death, and reconnects his glazed eyes to yours.

The world isn't all the way you remember it to be.

----

_Remember, Hinata, remember- she can hear someone she can't name banging on the frosted glass between her brain hemispheres, calling her. Remember us, please; come back to us, your family. We love you._

_There's been a terrible mistake._

_A little girl in purple waits; a little girl in purple bites her chubby, child fingers, twirls the sash of her lilac yukata. She can't have just woken up; this is her sneaking suspicion, one she hasn't revealed to anyone in this country. They have the eyes of predators, and even a little girl can see them: shifting, uneasy, searching for something small to swoop up and carry far, far away to their nest._

_Like her._

_The palanquin stops, shuddering to the ground like a ceratopsian mount that's had it's legs shot out. The sheer curtain between her and the dusty world seperates, and there's a hand. She follows it, not taking it but bowing her head as she slips into the sunlight, onto the marble floors of an outdoor terrace._

_She keeps staring up at the man she'll be marrying, trying to meet his hawk-eyes with some animal strength of her own. (He's waiting to swoop down, to take her from even here-) But she's only seven after all…and she's already aware that she does not belong here._

_----_

_Karura is biting a hunk of rubber that tastes like ash, straining with the fits of blood that gush from her. Nobody says anything; nobody speaks or hears in Sunagakure, it seems. They didn't hear her crying out before she became Satan's vessel, and nobody acknowledges her shrieks now. She's just the gourd that carries the sand, the womb to carry some godless child who will know more that the eye-riddled dunes of the endless desert do. She has never wanted this; she has never wanted this life for her child._

_A daughter, by the looks of it._

_It's blue and screaming, crying out in short bursts that come to resemble'why, why'; but the delivered mother's eyes are cloying heavy with metallic tears and the life is leaking out from between her legs. It didn't want to come out, didn't want to be brought into this horrible, horrible world- there is no joy here, no song in the desert. There is no life here._

_They'll never hear a child crying; only a monster, barely contained._

_She knows it will kill her; she knows this little girl will face the world alone, and the thought scares through her being like slow-moving lightning. She holds her close when they hand the baby to her; she's warm, red, and stabbing Karura right in the chest. But she knows what she has to do._

_The Kazekage comes sauntering in, all shadows; their exchange is brief, as all relations between such people must be. There's no use caring for someone who cannot care._

"_I told them." she says, eyes glinting like the edges of knives, the blood on the baby's downy, red head._

"_My daughter will live to see this place in ruins- you, in ruins." she promises. _

"_The love I have for her will be her constancy. You will see to it, or the blade will fall. If you ruin this child any more-"_

_Her head lolled forward, rolling and stopping with cheek against the lumpy, soft skull of what was supposed to be a beautiful girl. Black eyes welded shut, the little Jinchuuriki began to whimper from the deadweight of her lifeless surrogate._

_Aiko. That's what she was called from then on, even if the Sandaime made it a point never to speak it aloud (hearing it was painful enough, you see). _

_----_

_He's at home here, where the shadows cavort. They're in his eyes, dancing like the flames of funeral pyres when they give up the ghost to the wind, to the four corners of the earth. Naruto seems to know every one of them, as he closes his face and they place the last pat of dirt over Iruka's ashes._

_Anko is at that point where it's real and not real; the absence of Iruka, the trench in the bed she rolls into and wakes up lost in, is heartrending; it's through her like a metal beam and she can't anticipate or block. She's defenseless against his lonely coffee cup in the dish strainer; the second pair of slippers by every door; his rolled socks in the drawer. The lump at her stomach is not, however; the child with his eyes and gentle chin isn't even a specter in her mind, because she can't imagine tomorrow without him, let alone a year. Five years. _

_She needs someone who knows the lonely places where the world converges into a box; she's lost in this staunchly enclosed space, unable to understand where realities meet, banging her head against the corner. _

_But the walls have just diverged; she can feel it, the breeze of a clammy but new day, too long shut away. It's whipping his hair with it's salty fingers, singing of moors and sweet grass that goes on too far to die; old love, new love. It says, so quietly that only she and Sarutobi can hear it, that if she ever escapes this vacuum she's screaming in, she has an obligation to take Naruto with her. They're floundering beside each other, after all, in the same ungiving bend of this life._

_And so she walks over to the dirt-streaked little boy, and gazes peacefully into his eyes. Iruka's there, and that's when Anko officially adopts the fox and the lamb as her own._

_----_

_It's buried under everything, but it still manages to come up; like an earthquake that dislocates the very landscape of the world, leaving everything he knew on another, lower plane._

_He's up and punching at nothing in a dramatic twist of seconds; ten years of rage boiling between his ears, but he's not making a sound. The connections his sad little hands finally make, with their soft, pinched knuckles and their crooked fingers, fail to connect in his mind; it's a soundless void, this place. It's a place he owns, carpeted from floor to ceiling with something that's entirely his._

_The boys are crying, genuinely crying at the sight of their blood and the indignation of being thrashed by their long-time scapegoat. They'll never tell anybody about this, to keep the natural social order in place; Lee's not supposed to be anything, he's not supposed to fight back to what they say or what they do to him._

_But in the safe, little room of anger carved in his heart, connected by symbiote to the living walls, the little failure known as Rock Lee suddenly has something on these kids._

_Sheer hatred. _

_----_

"_Oh, hello." Deidara says; he even steps down from his clay mount, sweeping the dust of the road with a flourish of a bow to her. The little girl, a cylinder of pink silk, topped by a round face painted with bloodless disbelief, makes no sound. Her eyes are on the head near his foot, the one that's supposed to be attached to her father's neck; the daimyo's caravan seems to have been hit by hurricane, and she stands in the midst of the wreckage, very small in comparison to the gaping world that has just opened up at her feet._

_He slides his ice-colored eyes over her, savoring the shock. Cute kid; looks just like the flabby, dead woman who he detonated a bomb in the face of. Stupid upper eschalon._

"_Are you mad now?"_

_The braided buns pinned to the top of her head are trembling, as are her knees beneath the small red flowers dotting her kimono like the black speckles dotting the ground. The guards are shredded, the forest is without sound, and the world as this girl knew it is forever gone; her parents are dead at her feet, and something inside of Tenten is, too; small and cracked, laying exposed before her._

_Deidara tells her that if she doesn't like it, do something about it. And even through the turmoil of the years, even through the elements and all life can throw at her, the stone shell of Tenten never forgets- and she never forgives. _

_----_

So stay close and don't get lost, he says (Rin is crouched behind him, eyes bled of their ink-). It's easy to get lost in this place, if you're following what isn't there, he says.

And then the katana swings down, burying itself in the vulnerable firmness of Hatake Kakashi's spinal cord.

* * *

**AN: **

**_When you review, to this here crew,_**

**_You lift our souls up from the mortal stew;_**

**_You make such a difference when you simply,_**

**_Simply review..._**

**_A poem for you._**

**So, PLEASE, DEAR GOD. REVIEW.**


	2. Hachimon

**AN: Albeit discouraged with writing in general, I post this with glee. Harhar. Fear the Lee.**

* * *

The dark closing on in the small alleys in Konoha does not mean the life in them disappears; rather, by the lights of fat lanterns and tempered candles the buildings who's window-eyes are shut in the day. It's another world at dusk, bustling safely with the smells of cooking and laughter, chatter and drunken sing-alongs. There's a contented aura to match the cheery street banners and pulsing flags; the Chunin exams are fast approaching, and the whole thing is akin to Christmas for the local businesses. The sweets shops are pumping out goodies, the old maids beating the dust from the corners of their small stores- everyone's getting ready for the influx of visiting Shinobi lords and vassals by cleaning up or giving their neighbor a hand. It's surprising, the goodwill that comes with the smell of commercialism; disquieting, the opaque intent behind every perceived kindness.

Orochimaru buys a greasy bag full of deep-fried tempura bits, little nibblets too small to make it into the regular product. He walks to the inn with it at arm's length, his new female face crimped with pinched disgust. He hates spicy food.

The hollowed-out kunoichi opens the door to their room casually, places the keys on the table near the door, and groans with pleasure as she massages the thick, black hair of this body's head; without recognition, she flings the bag into the tatami-mat den and strolls over to draw a bath. Dosu, Kin, and Zaku contemplate their master's kindness long enough for the food to thump onto the floor; then they're on it like insects, wrestling and clawing at one another with the abandon of the starving. There will be no sharing, they know.

"Remember not to kill each other." his caramel voice calls with a touch of cheer. They're his eyes tomorrow, and he needs a full team to lure his prey into the irrevocable fold (who ever knew that giving someone exactly what they wanted would take so much conniving?). Just because they're required, however, does not give them any bargaining chip; they'll cooperate for this last night, distracted by hunger, and then their duties will be finished. Thinking on the theme of hidden intent, Orochimaru decides to buy them a big breakfast tomorrow. A reward, they'll think; insurance, he knows, in case these contingent pawns should falter under the additional strain.

----

She bows her head with refinement , allowing the band to be slid from her sweaty forehead; the maid carefully folds the black strips in on each other, never bearing the Lighting Country's seal to her lady's eyes. Hinata has requested this especially, having enough time to comandeer such things. The idleness was what drove her to this new goal, which the Raikage allowed with disbelieving glee. She hates that he has the amount of power of her that he does, but there's nothing to be done; that's the theme of her life as a lady in-waiting, and it will be until she's a marriageable sixteen.

It occurs to her, daily, that the theme will remain intact even after she is wed. Those are the moments she flings her brush down and her hair from it's ties, and stalks into the courtyard to hone the angry, repressed chakra within her chest. She was born a kunoichi, and she won't completely abandon that ideal, no matter what.

Eyes downcast, the young, pale maid hands her a folded sleeping robe and backs away quietly; Sachiyo slides the door open without ceremony, closing it quietly behind her. She is a dark-skinned beauty, like many of the women of Kumogakure, almost too comely to be deathly. But she's the Raikage's assistant for an obvious reason, and that reason alone is enough for Hinata to distrust her.

"Hinata-san, are you tired from the journey?" she asks plainly, as if something else is on her mind. They are roughly five years apart in age, the young girl and her babysitter, but Hinata is a very old soul now; she hasn't been a child since she was first brought here, you see.

"Yes, maam." the girl whispers, at length slipping the cotton curtain between them closed for privacy as she dresses. She feels like a fish in bowl, like she's going to overheat from anticipation-

She can hear Sachiyo nod. "Don't fret. The best cell in Kumogakure will be with you for the duration of the Chunin Exams, and the Raikage himself will intercede on your behalf. Do you find Konohagakure to your liking, upon this first visit?"

Robe snugly fastened, Hinata removes the unscented sheets from the crisp hotel futon. "Very comfortable," she answers, not coldly enough to arouse suspicion; at this small victory she grins tightly. "It seems unassuming, almost docile."

"Oh, maam, I don't know." the creamy-skinned woman warns ominously, backing her black-clad form out of the room with a bow. "You'd be surprised, the kinds of monsters that hide in this village…"

Yeah. she prays as the lights are turned out and the door locked. Like kidnappers.

----

The post before him explodes into jagged hunks of chip; they pierce Lee's knuckles, but his expression never alters as he postures and kicks through the rest of the kata. At the training's graceful end, his slow slide into the initial battle position, Gai begins to applaud.

"Excellent work, Lee!" the man cries with great passion. Lee never looks at him, only softens his eyes and begins to stroke his new wounds, willing them to heal in time. Nothing else is said between them, Gai coughs awkwardly. "You- ah, you're really ready for the exams tomorrow, huh?""I hope so, sir." he answers respectfully; nothing else but that. Lee and Gai have a better relationship than most sensei and their students, but there's always been a barrier there that no one can breach. Lee doesn't let people close, no matter how they praise or encourage him. Call it a habit, but since he joined Team 13, Gai has noticed a distinct tendency for self-preservation in all Lee does. He's looking out for Number One- and if Lee would ever let him, Gai would like to ask what's made him pull up shields like this.

"Yes, Lee, excellent." Neji agrees, nodding as he and Tenten stalk into the fairy-circle clearing where Lee goes when he needs peace.

"Hi, Neji-san." Lee addresses, offering the approaching parties a glance and a small smile. "You look pleasant today."

"As I should!" the coal-haired boy laughs; there is a curious lack of gloom in his lavender eyes, a lightness you would have seen in Lee's if this weren't the story it is.

"Today is the transfer of the deed; my uncle's been dead three weeks, and now my father can resume leadership of the Head Family. You're looking at the new Hyuuga prodigy!"

"That's awesome!" Gai brays, before pausing. "I mean- not that your uncle is dead of course, but. Yes. That you have such an opportunity, haha…"

"You're having a good week, then." Lee says because there's nothing else to; Neji is forever caught up in the politics of his lofty clan, having no one but his younger cousin Hanabi to combat for attention. With his father alive, there is no end to the blessings held by this particular boy. Neji is without anxiety- which can hardly be said for his other teammates.

"You can come by if you want, I'll sneak you some of the food."

"That's okay," the large-browed one replies. "I think I will stay here and train. Good luck tomorrow, both of you."

"Same," Tenten murmurs, sidling back to the wooded path; she's been staring out at the sunset with her own matters weighing her attention. She constantly gives the impression, usually without malicious intent, that she's combating something far more important than you in her interaction with you. It can get offensive, but not when you've got all the eyes of your family glued to you.

I.e, when Neji complains about Tenten's dispassionate nature, Lee resists the urge to shatter the boy's face as easily as he shattered that post. That sorry, entitled little asswipe has no right to complain.

Gai drifts off towards home next, and then Neji, spouting happily about the coronation ceremony. It must be nice, having a whole clan to fawn and socialize with; a born advantage like the Byakugan, plus a whole fighting style to be form-fitted for.

As his fists ring in the silver air, Lee's eyes begin to sting. Neji could never be him, never understand him or Tenten; the lonely despair of being deprived of regard and luck would just make his head explode. Lee wonders when that spoiled brat will be forced to grow up; Lee wonders why some people live on clouds, dining on pheasant, while the dirty guttersnipes like himself aren't worthy of such comfort.

Why some boys have to train all night long to just hit the bar, when everyone else receives everything Lee wants on a silver platter.

----

"Aiko," Temari calls softly, letting the sound carry into the stuffy room where the rest of her cell sleeps. In a moment appears a swirling of grim, heavy sand, and it spirals away to reveal the form of a young, redheaded girl. Eyes rimmed heavily with darkness, Aiko crosses her arms and regards the panorama before them.

The sun is rising over the heads of the Hokage, bathing the cheery houses of Konohagakure with rose-colored shafts of ethereal light. Birds sing cheerfully; Temari can hear her sister blinking, breathing.

Turning her sparrow back on the world, the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi clutches her new, swollen breasts and paces back into the Sunagakure Representative Team's appointed dwelling in this village. Temari knows that she likes to look at beautiful things, and smiles as Aiko slides the door closed with the dreadful, killing silence of their homeland.

"... Thank you, Temari."

It's the last beauty any of them will see, for some time now.

* * *

**AN: Um, w00t? Review, por favor?**


	3. Keimon

**AN: A pox upon this site...oh, wait, there already was. I guess so many rabid SasuKarin fangirls were posting fics to keep the pairing alive (even though SHE NO LONGER IS, HAHA). that I couldn't get on yesterday. Anywhoo, get prepared: Rock Lee will rock you in this chapter. **

**This chapter (and it's Lee-ness) fondly dedicated to Catchandelier, who was so happy with the work that he/she swore in his/her review. XD**

* * *

Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing, sweetly singing-

Distant squirrels chittering, and opening his eyes slowly, slowly to their calls. His skin cold, dotted with sweat; the soft, male touch of bandages unraveled, the smell of cotton and summer. Nothing but these quiet observations greet him, and for a moment before he truly wakes, Rock Lee floats beyond the tree and clouds of faith and fear.

And then his head begins to ache dully, in the center of his forehead. The seraphim songs are growing louder, as the angels begin their stomp-dance upon his shoulders. Lee sits up, wondering if he's the only one in Konoha with this empathy for the occult; this talent for knowing.

Something bad is going to happen, his bones sing.

* * *

It's a soft kind of warning, and the only sign that he's aware of the approaching threat is that his ear twitches. Akiyama is distracted by this small movement as he falls soundlessly through space- the instant before Naruto whips up, catches the boy's head in the crook of his arm, and slams them both back down onto the futon.

There is generalized clawing and kicking, blankets flying and insults shouted, before the tow-headed young child surfaces from Naruto's armpit with a great, lion-like roar for breath. Latching onto Naruto's back like a small monkey, Akiyama pulls at hair; Naruto plunges in a somersault across the tatami floor, laughter mixing with their dumb screams of pain and expletives. Above her son's screams, Anko can hear furniture being knocked over and birds scattering from the window ledges. She sighs, lowers her fifth cup of black coffee, and folds her legs in time to look authorative and disapproving.

Naruto alone sneaks out of his bedroom now, a huge bundle like Santa's toy sack slung over his shoulder; Akiyama has been wrapped up in a spare quilt and is now hanging upside-down, legs flailing like some sort of hyperactive fetus in a blue womb.

"MOMM! MOM! GET MY SHRIUKEN, QUICK!"

"I'm going to leave you both in the gutter,"Anko warns, pursing her thin lips. Naruto merely grins, strolls into the kitchen, and begins stuffing his burden inside of the large cabinet beneath the sink. The plum-haired woman rolls her eyes, returns her eyes to the mission dossier who's contents are scattered across the cluttered breakfast table. What's left of the Umino clan is closely knit and a genuinely refreshing family to watch…if for no reason other than their discord.

Akiyama bangs retroactively from the cabinet, which Naruto simply holds shut with one foot as he prepares a bowl of (you'll never guess) ramen. Anko rises for another shot of death in a cup; she might as well be drinking liquor (which she is not all that opposed to doing in the morning, anyway). She musses the eldest boy's sleep-scented head with one calloused hand on her way back to the table, and asks him if he's all ready for the big day.

"Damn right I am, _dattebayo_- OH,YOUBOUGHTRAMEN!!"

"Stop swearing, you little shit," she says. "And didn't I say I'd bury you in the yard if you kept saying that?"

"Love you too, Mom." Naruto rasps; with this shifts and removes a bowl from the sink, causing Akiyama to spill from his cage in a rumpled, floundering heap.

Momentarily stunned, the small boy sits up; Akiyama has large eyes that sharpen at their corners, like his mother's, but the rest of him is Iruka: his square palms and thick fingers, his button nose, and the same compulsive obsession with neatness. Wordlessly, Akiyama leapt up and tore past Naruto, to shut off the stove not five feet from his amethyst-haired mother.

"Oh… Was that overdone?" the woman asked innocently.

"Yes, Mom-" the young boy sighed. "How do you burn water?"

"You know Naruto and I would starve without you, my son- you're the only one between us who knows a damn thing about a damn thing, after all..."

"Mom, nii-chan- please stop swearing!" the young one fussed, sounding stressed.

"Hey, mom- what are you and Aki-kun gonna do while I'm gone?' Naruto asked, cheerfully backing into his own chair.

"I thought we'd have Sakura over," Anko began, swiping away at the report with her ink brush. "Show her that video we have of you and Akiyama singing 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight', with the diapers on your heads. Something that'll destroy your teenaged reputation for good, and make Sasuke look ten times cooler."

"No way!" Naruto shouted, crossing his arms defiantly; Anko uses the moment to swoop across the table and plant a kiss on the boy's head; Naruto immediately squirmed away, faking disgust.

"Ah, yes, my oldest. Such a difficult age... Now go. You're not going into the Forest of Death for three days without showering, so go cleanse yourself before someone besides me notices how bad you smell."

The whiskered boy smiled gleefully, meeting his adopted mother's eyes; happiness fairly cracked in the blue of them, and she resisted the urge to embrace him again. The distance puberty put between mother and son demanded this kind of banter, but there was no real competition or favoritism in this home; only a semblance of normality that seemed to plug up all the insecure holes in the world.

"I don't get why you guys are so mean to each other!" Akiyama protested from behind the wall; he is preparing breakfast, since Anko cannot be expected to. "Naruto could get seriously hurt at the exams today, and then you'd be sorry!"

Her unguarded and light response, the one that just leaps out in the comfort of the domestic setting, stops them all dead in their tracks- including her, mid brush-stroke.

"You're so much like your father, Aki-kun…"

* * *

There are some things on earth besides Aiko that never sleep, but she'd have no way of being in touch with them. The howling in her head drowns out all but the most sacred cries of the beast.

Kankurou knows this is what his young sister is listening to as they traipse towards the center, and he gently bumps her with his shoulder to bring her back. She growls in return, to which he merely grins and ruffles her head rudely; from there he proceeds to trap her head in his armpit until she outright roars. The sight of Aiko once she is released, rumpled and glaring, makes Temari laugh involuntarily. It's hard to be afraid of what she knows is just a scared little girl, the one who came running to her the night before with a certain female 'malady'; her first, and the cramps were already adding to Temari's sister's general outrage with life.

"So why were you girls squealing last night? And why did I keep hearing the word 'blood'?"

"We were not s_quealing_," the blonde girl answers him; Aiko frowns deeply, grooves appearing in her grim forehead. She ever looks like an old woman, Temari sometimes thinks; a grim little old lady bothered by everything.

After a while, Aiko sighs. "You shall rot in the depths of hell," she deadpans to her brother.

Aiko can't bridge the gap between her and these siblings she has known through the turmoils of her lifetime- but she is much closer to it than she ever was as a boy. It's something about it being hard to hate a little, red-headed girl with tears in her eyes- and something about Temari always reaching out, trying to draw her sister out into the world of the living and the loving. Protecting her from what she can.

* * *

They meet at the gates to the Forest, too brave to have balked at the Tenth Question and too scared of failure to raise a defeated hand skywards. Hard faces to the wind, these and many more Shinobi children prepare for their ultimate hazing into the world of grown-up assassins; eyes steeled and fists clenched, they think they are ready to enter this great and terrible maze of drastic change.

They could not be more wrong if they tried- and yet there they go, through the gates where the angels are scream-singing their little hearts out.

* * *

Neji is more than capable of fighting his own battles; it's just more convenient for others to do it for him, because being spoiled by his family has bred a lazy streak in this young genius. He protests splitting up for some time, until Lee finally manages to convince him that they can cover more ground this way. Neji reluctantly agrees, and Tenten says nothing; the only things she has to say to the world concern vengeance and the unfairness of her position as a victim. She is a meditative version of Uchiha Sasuke, mature enough to keep her hatred to herself; all the better to conceal it with.

But Lee is aflame inside, and only the fact that no one is listening keeps his peals from being heard. It is as though every time he looks upon his apathetic cell- at uncaring, stony Tenten and the blabbering, chirpy Neji- some great salt-water force in Lee shudders against a small hole, draining much too slowly. The pressure is building in his chest, and he has to get away from them-

Only when they disappear soundlessly into the forest canopy can Lee stand and clutch his face, reminding himself to breathe over the boiling of rage in his soul.

* * *

"What is it?" the one without a face asks him.

Orochimaru licks his new, soft lips, without loosing his eyes from the middle distance.

"Something delicious," he whispers.

* * *

Hinata lands with the gracility of a panther upon one of the nameless branches of the forest; her escorts arrive with but the tree's hollow complaint, their twin faces unidentifiable beneath sagging, breath-warmed masks.

"Hinata-sama," the one growled. "You will allow Mashizuki and I to retrieve the other scroll from your enemies."

"Stand down, Kazue-" she snarled back. Hinata wore an outfit almost identical to theirs: the plain, unfussy black top and ankle-length pants, fishnet ornaments from the knee down, and black sandals. She is only differentiated by the flowing, purple hair which has escaped her hair arrangement and the cherry-red sash about her waist.

"We are on strictest orders from your husband-to-be that you shall not engage in open combat-"

"And what of my commands?" Hinata spat, whirling on her heel. "Why would I bring the delegation all the way here if I did not plan on proving myself?"

But it was useless; Mashizuki nor Kazue flinched, or even blinked at the screech for freedom which had just escaped the girl's mouth; she was but a delivery to be made, a pawn to be protected until their task was complete. And their duty would end in three years, with the added stress of this masquerade for the amusement of their leader's betrothed. No one expected her to fight.

Not another soul on earth knew of the plan Hinata had nursed in the quiet nights, anticipating her transport to the quarters of the odious, iron-hearted Raikage. No one could imagine the escape roiling behind her clear, white eyes.

She paused for a moment, staring as deeply as she could into their eyes; and then, without a word, Hinata dropped on her bottom amid a throne of leaves and branches. "I'm hot." she drawled, waving one hand dismissively in front of her effort-pink face. "Go get me some water-and Kazue, fetch me one of those beancakes from your bag."

"Of course, Hinata-sama," the man replied, already dipping to his knee. Reaching around as Mashizuki trudged off with their long-emptied water gourd, the black-clad young guardian took his eyes off of the seated and arrogant-looking posture of his charge for one moment. "Which kind would you li-"

The absolute sound of silence brought his head spinning back.

"…Damn it," he muttered, staring at the ass-shaped indention where Hinata had just been sitting. The forest was entirely quiet but for the calling of a mourning dove, some distance away.

* * *

The world narrows to thin lines; yellowness; the gray of smoke leering down over them all, the animal life of being hyper vigilant for some bigger carnivore.

Lee leaps heavily from branch to branch, minutely slower than those of his comrades imbued with the agility of chakra clinging; this boy is as lost in the soaring world of the treetops as we would be, with only his weak-willed and unreliable feet to depend upon. The only thing more leeching of his courage than throwing himself over these gulches of open air is that knowledge: he is a fish in the sky, a little know-nothing amongst eyeless assassins fed on blood and skilled prodigies. Plus the fact that he is being followed.

He is looking for a place to make a stand, or waiting for his pursuer to lose interest. He doesn't have the scroll; Neji might want Lee to do all the dirty work, but there's no way he'd entrust their precious item to someone as, as…

As vulnerable as Lee is right now, his veins full of cold mercury as he turns tail and flees.

It is every horror moment his mind has spawned, and more: the fear makes his feet go numb, and he almost slips into the abyss with a frantic scream. And the rival feet keep following, like a bad smell. He's not hurrying; he doesn't have to, to keep up with Lee, and this sends such a shock through Lee's brainstem that he begins to whimper to himself, and completely diverts his direction in the hopes of throwing the enemy off: he bounds downwards, ricocheting to a safe landing in a clearing the size of a room. Close to the ground, in the dark shadows cast by trees receiving the lowest hosing from the dying sun, he breathes in and out through his nose, waiting. Wondering if this little nook of the forest will be his sepulcher. Wondering honestly, without feeling or pity, if anyone will care.

And then the breath manifests, in a warm and poisonous hiss, against the soft bump of his first vertebrae.

Lee has never known desperation like this; his kidneys actually ache from the adrenaline as he somersaults, deftly emitting a kunai knife from the pouch at his thigh. He's floating on air, far above Gai-sensei and Neji and red headbands that mark failures, his body buzzing with fear as he searches the leaves. He's suddenly on his feet, and bending down and to the side like a tree in a hurricane; the shruiken whiz past his shoulder with their teeth rattling on empty air. Lee snatches another kunai, and deflects, almost without feeling, three more of them, thrown much harder than Tenten ever could; having ascertained their direction in that quiet and unholy way that only a Shinobi can, he leaps, intercepting the arm as it snatches a handful of his loose shirt. He knows he's found the eyes when his kunai stabs on gelatin and something warm kicks back into his face, but the thought reaches him seconds later. Long legs flying, Lee sweeps into a low, mighty kick; his opponent dodges, but the sable-haired and desperate boy follows him up, with a returning speed that's exceptional even for a taijutsu user. There is a silent respect for wily speed herein; it is without warning that the man's hands begin flapping in a series of seals, and just as startling fast that Lee hammers fast enough so as to break the series.

Avoiding a monstrous blow by the opponent's elbow, Lee flips backwards; wet strands of his crazily-spiking hair are clinging to his cheeks with sweat as he tucks his legs in, avoiding the claw-like motion which bites after them, like snapping snakes. With not an instant to break the pose, Lee balances perfectly on his hands and whips his torso, driving a kick squarely into the opening between his opponent's arms. Blood is still flying, soaking Lee's toes. It is halfway between the light slashing across the injured man's face (long, dark hair, a tight-lipped smile- no, a woman-) that she strikes, faster than he could have imagined. In a flash faster than the haunting illumination of a lightning strike, Lee is flying with limbs spread through the air, the wind knocked from his lungs as his diaphragm collapses. His leg is slashed, and bleeding badly; he flips once, twice in midair from the force of the blow, his neck snapping backwards when his face connects first with the ground. With the sickening sound of bones rearranging themselves, the dark-haired Genin drops in a heap of loose limbs and goose-pimpled skin, every hair on his body standing straight up. He is too busy trying to breathe through deflated and shocked lungs to be surprised that he is still alive. No killing blow rains from above in the following seconds, and in fact some time later Lee is scared silent, stiff, by only the presence of eyes. A gaze, and nothing more.

It is only Lee and the entity staring into the dark at what they think is each other. The shadows have so overtaken the place as to render sight difficult; but Lee gets a perfect view of the grown woman who strolls forward, laughing softly.

The blank, bleeding socket of the woman's right eye staring back at him next to it's intact counterpart is not what does it, nor the sight of her supple and apparently endless tongue swabbing away what remains of that eyeball. What makes Lee drop is the malignant power emanating from her form, the sheer salt of pants-pissing bloodlust rolling out of her in waves. All the ink drained from his pupils and his cheeks scathed by dirt, Lee stares, mesmerized, into the face of Death itself- until Death laughs, her cackles echoing through the silver air.

"Heh- wow." is all she says. "You're a real hellion, aren't you? I knew I smelled something scrumptious over here…"

Removing the conical hat which shaded her features, the Grass Kunoichi who's body Orochimaru had slithered into for this occasion grinned down at the kneeling child. A thread of black fled down her cheek; Lee could now see that he had sliced at an angle down her forehead and clear through the right eye, cutting her nose down to the angry, raw bone.

"That wasn't very nice," Orochimaru sniped lightly, crimping his nose in a decidedly-feminine manner.

"And after I came here to offer you something, too…"

He bent down and Lee, awakening from his trance, bolted backwards. Orochimaru approached for the few steps Lee could muster, never blinking or altering his thick, unreadable expression. As Lee's gasps floundered in the caustic silence, the coquettish head which held that unspeakable gaze tilted lightly.

"You have…such an anger about you. It's almost sickening." he rambled quietly. "I thought I'd found the perfect successor…but, no. There's a potential in you. Such a _hatred_ in that little heart- Tell me, what is your name, boy?"

"… Rock. Lee." the addressed breathed, still searching the snaky face.

"Lee." Orochimaru repeated, as though tasting the word. He bent down again, tilting that eyeless face once more. "Lee, are you as angry as I think you are? Are you really holding all of that in?"

"Yes," the boy replied.

"You have something you'd follow to your death to prove, wouldn't you?"

"… Yes."

A wide grin slowly ate across that young, pointed face. "What would you do to have the power to do that? Anything?"

"… Anything." he answered breathlessly. This succession of moments had left Lee drained of all life; and the anger was so close to his skin that it fairly spoke for itself. It seemed as though Lee, with his lonely heart and concaved future, had trained to answer this question: trained all of those lonely evenings, those days without anyone's touch. What came out of his mouth was the truth.

"Would you give your leg? Your arm?"

"… Y-yes." Lee was still staring straight into Orochimaru's good eye.

"If you'd give those, then your body isn't such a big step, is it… That settles it. I want to give you that power, Lee. You have a destiny, to surpass this state of weakness. To show them all."

"…Me?"

"Yes, you." the man encouraged, toneless. "I sense in you something brilliant. You could surpass even your wildest notions of power, and use it on whoever you like. But only if you will become mine…"

"…Uh," Lee shook his head as though drying it off, seeming to regain his grip with reality. "This is kind of sudden…" he murmured, for once releasing himself from Orochimaru's eyes.

"No time like the present, huh?"

"I guess…" the sable-haired boy mumbled, bangs obscuring the hunted gleam of uncertainty in his eyes. Silence fell between the pair for a few long moments; the silent winging of birds, a hushed choir singing to the death of innocence everywhere high above them, filling the night air.

"What do I have to do?" the Genin finally asked.

The seal was already formed, the woman's neck distending and her fangs glaring, before time caught up. Her body fell fully upon Lee as he knelt, pinning his lanky body against hers, upon the cold ground. Before the shock of this embrace could hit him, however, the boy's neck suddenly roared with a pain not of his world.

Poison swam up his limbs; little Lee jerked as though electrocuted, mouth falling open and his eyes dilating. Colors flashed, each shade increasingly painful; his hands curled and feet kicked as if by their own devices. His body began to seize wildly, screams caught in his throat that emerged only as chokes; a drowning dog, a spider being crushed. As the boy arched and convulsed beneath the cage of his binding grip, the dark-haired woman could be seen to rise slightly; Orochimaru's fangs detached with a popping sound. Hair streaming in a curtain down, shielding the horrible contortions of Lee's expression from anyone in the world who would have taken note, that empty face stared down at him for long moments, watching. Watching his veins contort and his eyes roll; watching as the Curse Seal shut down every defense born of his hardened little body and dropped Lee into a pain-filled coma. When the boy was silent but for rasping breath, for the occasional twitching of limbs, Orochimaru finally grinned and climbed up from his hands and knees.

Dusting his warm palms, the corpse whispered: "All you have to do now, kid, is survive. Then we'll talk."

* * *

**AN: That encounter was hard to write...I'm sorry if it dragged even a bit. And yes, Hinata's Entitled stereotype is dated; if she annoys you, give me some suggestions for a painful ending, because I guarantee you that no one's coming out of this story more than mildly content with life.**


	4. Toumon

**A/N: Just like a bad penny...we're baaaack! This chapter really took a bit of jawing, and I'm still not sure I did such a hot job ending it. Pay attention to the bit with Akiyama, just in case I minimized it too greatly. Sorry for the lag...**

** And I'm trusting that all you Kakashi fans will forgive me for what's happened to him...at least he's ever as irreverant, and can still kick some serious **_oshiri_**. **

* * *

The forest invades her every pore, crowding out every fear. There is only the ecstasy of the fall, the dulcet song in fleeing everyone's expectations and ideals.

Hinata is a vision; but in this dank and deathly land her only advantages are the ones she can make for herself, and this sensation is slowly making her whole again. She bounds, caressing tree bark as she pounces off into air, breathing; simply breathing. Breathing something except the staleness of the truth.

She lands in a quiet flush of cloth, on one knee. She is turned away from her opponent, who has been following her through the greenery with hungry eyes. But what he wants (savage and sanguine blood, only to kill her) is preferable at this moment. Hinata whips out a kunai, and turns, full of fire.

The kunoichi there, her hair caught back in a charcoal ponytail, has an instant to steel Hinata in place with her eyes; Kiba comes drilling from the canopy without hesitation, screaming into the tunnel created by the symbiosis of a boy and a dog.

* * *

"…Kakashi?"

The silver-haired man inclines his head towards the door, and Gai slides in self-consciously. Being more able than his rival has never sat well with him, and without that bit of humor their relationship has no rhyme or reason to be mutually enjoyable.

"Perfect timing." the man murmurs. "Rin," he spits, "We've got company."

"Am I interrupting something, Kakashi-senpai?"

"No…In fact you just me a chance to imply that I'm getting it more often than you, which always brings me great joy."

"Hello, Gai!" the chesnut-haired woman calls; the black mole just above her breast peeks out for an instant until Rin is able to straighten her shirt again. She laughs awkwardly, ashamed but unashamed.

No one has found a reason to reproach Rin, yet.

"Good afternoon, Rin-san." Gai says respectfully, applying tact to Kakashi's tactlessness.

"Save your manners for kissing up to the daimyo," Kakashi utters, before reaching out his single arm and swinging into the light. The White Fang of Konoha now has a reason to wear a mask, but everyone knows it's not because Kakashi is proud; he just hates the unchanging quality of his face, and doesn't know how anybody else stands it either.

Half of Kakashi's face is frozen in a permanent grimace, you see. He is missing a large chunk of flesh from the soft part of his neck, where the skin is pulled so taut over the blood vessels that they seem to be large worms, pulsing with his life. You can follow the carnage down to the dead stump of an elbow at his left side, to his heaving chest and withered white leg, but doing so seems like disrespect. It's all you can do to focus on that leering face, half of it screaming in silent agony at you and the other half distinctly Kakashi.

"What do you want?"

"I am here to pick up those Genin rosters?"

"Jesus, you're two days late…" the man replies with a roll of his storm-gray eyes. "My poor wife can barely walk in here without the added paper. This place is becoming a fire hazard."

"What my darling-" here Rin pauses, grinning at them both as she reveals a plate of shrimp crackers- "What my darling husband means is that he thinks the whole world should be as obsessed with punctuality as he is." "You're so crotchety now, Kakashi…" Gai stings back, reaching for a wafer. "Like an old man."

Munching loudly, Kakashi makes half-a-face; "Paperwork makes you old before your time. That's why Sandaime loans the job to me. And you're one to talk, oh he of many crow's feet…"

"He's just complaining because lame dogs can't afford to be slow," Rin adds lightly; the company smiles, their banter innocuous.

Collecting his papers as more pleasantries are exchanged, Gai finally makes his mistake: "So, how is Chisato doing in her training?"

Kakashi and Rin's faces fall, simultaneously. Their eyes find the haven of the middle distance, where they look when Kakashi's pain worsens or Rin goes out to work for both of them.

"…It's nice to know that some things don't change," is all Kakashi's right side says.

* * *

"_Look, mama! Look!" the little girl cries as she bursts through the parchment doors; there are at least fifty small frogs visible in bell-sleeves of her kimono, and no small number of them are jumping ship as she runs, fleeing for the hills. It looks like a miniature plague._

_Yano Reina spins in a rustle of lavender, her curly hair lagging as she whirls. _Tenten remembers the look of disgust and playful willingness on her face, mixing inexorably as the moment spins like two colors of paint into the black of where memories end. She remembers Reina holding a few of the newly-legged creatures in her palm, and screaming when one jumped into her hair- but not what her mother said before that, and this loss has slain Tenten a thousand times over.

You never stop needing your mother. It's in our human makeup, that someone who spawned so much of us can never be absent from us for too long without causing distress. The edge of a katana does not take away this hunger, nor does the stark reality that Tenten's parents have been dead for nearly ten years. It still strikes Tenten sometimes, with an exquisite pain, how much she misses her mother's soft white hands, her plump lips forever pursed and dark-emerald eyes batting good-naturedly at the world.

Like right now. This little flash of remembrance has her with her back against the tree, her hands knit around the Heaven scroll as if she'll drift away into the blackness with it if she lets go. She looks skyward, breathes through her mouth; her eyes and heart fill painfully, out of practice- and then she is fine. Half a tear spilling down her smooth cheekbone, Tenten rounds the tree trunk with that lack of hesitation that only the damned possess.

And that's when she sees Lee struggling up, hand over the demon-curled half of his face. Blackness. Tenten remembers, suddenly, that she had a sister once.

* * *

Crows break the treetops, shuffling into the red sky carrying the shouts of hell's residents up from the center of the earth. Akiyama's nose is plastered to the window, where he looks out in what he thinks is the direction of the Forest of Death and knows that something has happened to Naruto.

Something that wasn't supposed to, if the world had been right.

* * *

The world warps around Hanabi's eyes; they're other-worldly and beyond words, beyond any sensation or violence that Hinata has ever known. They take her breath away, the breath she has to steal as she bounds away from Inuzuka Kiba's whirling Gatsuuga attack. Boy and dog break in midair while Hinata lands soundlessly on the belly of a thick tree branch, waiting to see what becomes.

But there's not a moment; Hanabi's found her with those eyes, and the lithe girl slices the air with a thin leg. Hinata ducks, in a wave of heliotrope, and releases the blades from her sleeves. It's instantly a psychical taijutsu fight, with the younger girl's soft, full-palmed blows weaving in and out of Hinata's guard. Only by slashing the girl's exposed wrist bone does Hinata gain a moment to escape their continuous dace of counters and blocks.

"Hanabi!" Kiba calls; Shino emerges on the scene first, but not the Shino you knew. This Shino has his characteristic afro and stout limbs, but his face is amazingly open and pale, like the center of a flower. His thin eyebrows crunch the flesh between his coffee-brown eyes, and with a wave of his hands the bugs swarm from his tank top and slacks.

Hinata darts first, analyzes later; she knows she doesn't want those bugs anywhere near her, but they're relentless as they chase her through the leaves. Much faster than she would have expected, she trips on the unwrapped hand of a large palm and hits the dirt on her face; the insects descend upon her like a curtain, sampling her excellent chakra with small, nipping pincers. It's agony, and she barely keeps from crying out. Shino approaches once she's incapacitated.

"It's no use, she doesn't have a scroll," the boy reports with a thin expression. Hyuuga Hanabi, age six, and Kiba, twelve, burst from the shrubbery with taut faces and thin, corded fists.

It's the first time Hinata gets a look at eyes like her own.

"I'm okay, guys-" the little girl says absently, dropping to one knee; her hand is wrapped in a wad of cloth which is almost entirely soaked with blood, but she seems not to notice. Hinata can't take her eyes off of this child, and eventually Hanabi notices and begins to stare back. Silence; sister meeting sister, to see if sparks leap between their hearts.

But none do, apparently- because Hanabi draws a kunai with a short snarl, and moves to stab Hinata's head through like the biggest appetizer she's ever plucked from a communal tray.

It's not Hanabi's intent that frightens Hinata; it's the ease with which her small body follows the motion through.

As she dodges, a pain suddenly explodes through Hinata's head; it manifests like a band of lightning across her eyes, and for a moment- a moment she activates for the first time her family heirloom.

Byakugan meets Byakugan; parallel paths converge, beyond impossibility.

* * *

Huffing, Chisato rises to her unsteady knees. Assured that the world is still spinning the right way around, the girl relaxes her eye sockets until she can feel her orbs fade from red to cool, marble grey. Everything around her is grey; her wild hair, the bloodless hands that her _tanto_ has stabbed through.

Tiredly, the girl reaches down and with effort removes the blade from it's unweeping wound. His throat bled out before she could think to stab through his hands.

The world almost ended again, but Chisato can't even cry with her father's eyes as she readjusts the torn shirt across her bound chest. She knew that if she'd told her father and mother the first time this happened, Kakashi would have been crippled with pain even worse than the stuff that terrorizes him at night; and Rin's eyes would be storm-heavy, cod-liver brown with low-lying fears, concern. Exhaustion.

Supposing that it's all a part of being a kunoichi, Hatake Chisato listens to herself breathe for a few moments, trying not to think about the time she didn't kill the man in time.

* * *

Sasuke's mouth is filled with blood, and Sakura's with cries. Tears have plastered her hair to her face, and pink flies everywhere, everywhere, as Sasue struggles; cracks; folds in half like an old, dead bed sheet.

A inch beyond the grip of the trembling sand, Naruto is standing on shaking knees. Sasuke's lifeless eyes stare into some beyond, hovering before Naruto like a presented platter.

Aiko regards this sight without pleasure or reprieve; arms ever crossed over her small chest, the red-headed girl merely retracts the clawlike tendrils of sand back into the gourd on her sparrow-back. Temari and Kankurou stand, armed, speechless. Karasu is half-unfurled, the blood for Kamitachi glistening on Temari's fingertip.

In fact, it's Temari who opens her mouth first, who lets the words this hypocritical, scrunched-up fetal little family has lived by for so long drop out.

"Crocodile tears, you wimp. If you loved him, you should have protected him."

* * *

**AN: We're getting pretty deep in here, so let me now if I'm losing you guys...I feel in particular I'm losing the Sand Sibs. Constructive criticism will improve not only my writing but my ability to succeed in writing in general, so as to provide you with a more perfect product. **


	5. Shomon

**A/N: Ack. The long-awaited Chapter 5...now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go throw up.**

**Sorrrrryyyyy, guys... _**

* * *

The soft caress of sunlight needles him to life like a mother's shaking hand. The vague taste of a nightmare remains in the corners of his mouth, but what is done seems to have been nothing more than the convolutions of a dark mind. Rock Lee studies the sunlight through his eyelids, making small sounds of waking in his throat. He is sprawled on the earth, the ground damp from the sweat of a broken fever. The sleep is too pleasant for him to depart from just yet. But the world returns quickly- he is in the Forest of Death, threats hide in the tree canopy, and his team- yes, he was supposed to meet his team. Well, he thinks, I'll just get up and do that.

And then Lee opens his eyes.

Tenten's body is hanging from the tree several feet before him, swaying in the breeze and out of sheer terror. She is teetering on the thin, calloused palms of a boy with sky-blue hair, who watches maniacally her struggling eyes and dithering elbows. Her wild fight for balance is the result of her precarious posture- she is bound behind her back, gagged, and strung up around the neck with a prickly-vine noose. Lee is just meeting her lupine, bulging eyes when Sakon denotes Lee with a chauvinistic snort and nods his head at him.

"'Morning, Sleeping Beauty. Hop on up, I'm a friend."

Lee startles, blinking his doe-eyes distrustfully at Tenten. With a sigh, Sakon slices her bonds through with a kunai and sends the girl thundering to earth in a heap. With an alien confidence, Sakon tucks the kunai into his _ao__dai_ and raises a hand towards the boy. "You'll be weak for a while, especially with the honker Orochimaru-sama put on you… Geez, what's wrong with you? Get up!"

Lee accepts the grasp, totters to his feet- nothing feels right, and yet the world is somehow different for the better; there's a lightness to his chest that hasn't lived in ages. He feels nothing else, even as he gazes down on Tenten again.

"Sorry, I was having a little fun," Sakon shrugs. "We don't get out much."

"…We?"  
"It's not my fault you're an antisocial freak," Ukon sniped from his perch on the boy's neck. Lee resisted the urge to startle, and instead stared out at this new reality with eyes wide open.

"Don't worry, your girlfriend here is fine. She won't remember a thing, I promise…and you wouldn't care if she did, would you?"

Thick, camel lashes teased Ukon's kohl-rimmed eyes as the boy leaned close, uncomfortably close, to give Lee some practice in living with the deadly stillness of this new earth.

"Would you?"

----

Mashizuke's thin, black body arcs down into the clearing; the leaves are thickly scented with blood, and knives still warm from their employer's hands mark the trees like wayward cactus spines. He waves his group down, however, and Kazue thuds to terra firma with one hand clamped around Hinata's elbow.

"The tower is this way, Hinata-sama." the young man instructs; he is very consciously trying to keep his voice down, and this is worse than being scolded for running off on them. Instead her rebellion is ignored in the manner of vassals who have no life but the commands thrown upon them from above like metal manna. Hinata wants Kazue to yell at her; she wants to peel back his mask and see if there's a real person under there, as desperate for freedom from these staged roles as she is.

The Heaven and Earth scrolls jangle at her waist, secured by her red _obi_ scarf, as they approach the trap-layered grounds of the central base- when suddenly Mashizuke's hand flashes towards his katana; Kazue steps before his mistress bravely, hand locked about the girl's arm; with Hinata's eyes cast about searching for an enemy, the man yanks a bottle of potion from his uniform's deep side pocket. The chloroform does it's duty, like everyone else in the Cloud country, and Kazue catches Hinata's lanky form before it can kiss the earth.

"Females are way too much trouble," the older one remarks. Mashizuke is unknotting the sweat-stuck _zukin_ from his cinnamon hair, which he allows to spill to his shoulders for a brief moment. Mashizuke has creamy, black-coffee colored skin, while beneath the draperies Kazue's sun-soaked skin is only several shades lighter than night. Kazue knows rather well the dangers of removing your safety casements, and thus refrains from this small act of freedom.

They're all trapped, you see, in this gilded cage they call Kumogakure no Sato; but the difference is that some people know what's outside the cage can be even more terrifying than a life of subjugation to golden bars.

----

"Mitarashi Anko-san!" Nobuse shrieks; the tone in his voice sends Anko whirling around the corner, practically dashing towards the source of his call. Already a herd of exam proctors are gathering at the AV room, reposing in their dour uniforms or taking advantage of the moment to rubberneck and chatter with their colleagues. Beneath the hurried blinks of primitive black-and-white monitor screens Anko elbows her way over heads and past the diligent members of the Forest's surveillance crew, who are bustling about like worker ants preparing for a frost. The room is entirely dark but for the eerie light of screens, the largest one being the size of a boom box, where a bespectacled Chuunin named Arashino Nobuse sits with black eyes fixed upon two grainy figures on the display.

They don't exchange pleasantries; "Naruto's in trouble." is all the man says before asking Anko if a demon fox being released warrants guardian intervention in this lawless land.

----

Aiko is used to getting things in her eyes; the girl doesn't even shield her face as the turf explodes in circular, bullet-like waves of shrapnel. Naruto is screaming, as if the red, gaseous horror surrounding him was being pulled out of his soul through his nostrils. The noise is inhuman; it raises the hackles of predators animal and nearly animal for miles, for it's sanguinity and frightening regalia.

"EEEEEEHHHHHH-" and then the beast roars, nine tails and nine hundred years of fury exploding from the mouth of a small boy; it's akin to a lion's roar escaping a mouse. But Aiko does not flinch. She's not affected in the least.

Temari and Kankurou resist the urge to stand down; Karasu dances at the will of Kankurou's fingertips, eerily illuminated by the bonds of baby-blue life energy connecting owner and puppet. Temari is at ready, and sweeps her windwaking fan into a tornado of rage to begin the battle.

Sakura skids; hits a tree, Sasuke's body rolling away from her. The black-haired Uchiha avenger is breathing, but barely; every one of his ribs is crushed, and the jagged spikes of his shattered patella are prodding dangerously at the membrane of his bladder. The ground rumbling is all that keeps the boy conscious, the sight of Naruto being encircled by clouds of hell. That scream-

Bracing himself with the first of a plethora of tails waiting to be released, the orange-clad form hovers in his sphere of red-hot hate. Naruto forms a hand seal and rushes the chakra in a crude but affective manner to his feet. There is no seal to counteract this summoning, as Orochimaru's Five Pronged Seal never found it's way to Naruto's tattooed belly.

The boy reappears in the tree canopy and wails again, the howl of something lost on the moon; and then he is on the ground again, clawing ravenously at Karasu's skeletal form. The chakra strings nearly snap from the pressure, but Kankurou holds the line and begins the two-step of death. With mere finger gestures he slings the puppet into the heat of battle, joints snapping and whirling as the Sandaime's eldest son activates every niche in the creature's body. Cleaver-like blades at the end of Karasu's swirling arms do not dissuade Naruto, who launches himself at Karasu none the less, newly-formed claws bared. Wood scratching; flesh meeting hungry steel fill the forest for a few moments- and then Karasu's gangly mouth falls open, releasing a poisonous cloud directly into Naruto's whiskered face. Hacking, the boy-thing stumbles; Temari uses the opportunity to summon Kamaitachi. Even her weakest attack by him levels the woods about them, slashing Naruto and sending him spinning through the air like a wayward piñata. Beneath the oak tree's embrace Sakura is weeping still, her sobs shaking the sky until Aiko notices the source of this annoying cry. The small girl raises a clawed palm towards the pink-haired girl, to silence her forever.

But Naruto explodes from thin air at that instant, seeming to tear time and space. He rears towards Aiko with the sliver of a moment denied to the Ichibi; before the sand armor can mount up in defense Naruto strikes, his slashing hand leaving a wake of incinerating chakra in it's wake. Ice-green eyes fallen wide, Aiko twists onto her side as she falls. She bounces on the ground, as Naruto flies into a tangent of punching, screaming, and slashing where his feet never seem to touch the ground. As brother and sister close in on him, Aiko's element finally reacts; her attacker is violently rejected, thrown into the forest with enough force that his tumbling limbs snap weaker trees in half. Naruto hits the ground like a limp sack of laundry, falling into a cradle of upraised roots and lying motionless for some odd time.

Sakura is silent for horror, now- but also because the simplified cogs of her brain are wheeling free a new solution to her life, to the things she was seeing and the souls she could feel roiling in the air. Sakura changed that day, even as she crawled to Sasuke's unconscious form and drew his hand up like a pacifier to her mouth.

As the dust settles, Aiko's reposed figure became discernible again, like an actor revealed by evolving stage lights; roiling to sudden life, the thin girl wandered with a purposeful gait, swinging fists, towards the dead tangle of limbs that made up a silent Naruto. As her black sandals paused before him, Naruto's sky-blue eyes swung open for a fraction of a second and focused on the only point in space that could have saved him. Before the dark overcame him, the blonde stared up at his enemy through the spikes of his unfettered bangs, bloody patches of cuts weeping down his neck and forearms.

Aiko lifted her hand to bring the earth up for her protection, waltzed it into a placid cocoon that would capture the splatters of his mortal form and puree him at the same time; but after a few moments of consideration Aiko relinquished her command. The sand pattered back to it's home, and its' master turned to walk back towards her rankled siblings. Past Sakura they three strolled, back into the black that had spawned them, as oily tears flowed down the coiffed cascade of her soft, pink hair; and before they disappeared, Aiko threw her one of those looks that was entirely the result of what you made of it.

----

When Tenten wakes, a frightening hole in her head, Lee is staring wordlessly down at her, legs curled to his sparrow chest.

Besides the ache of having been manhandled, and the patches of scratches dotting her arms, Tenten could have been peacefully napping through the Chuunin Exams. She remembers nothing of how she got here, nor recognizes the coiled heap of grass rope dotted with her blood that Sakon cast from her before he disappeared.

"Lee," she asks, finding her throat surprisingly parched.

He scrambles up without blinking, as Neji rounds the clearing like a dull cow with milk sickness. He finally pokes his head through the brush, and worriedly asks after his teammate's condition. Tenten is fine, it is quickly assessed. Lee is fine, Neji is fine; everything is fine now, suddenly, and Neji can't imagine what's suddenly made everything between them that less tense. But he's too spoiled to fear it, and instead entrusts himself to Lee's guard as they make for the endmark of the exam.

Like a carefully-wrapped gift, Lee fastens his loose _hapi_shirt higher around his vulnerable, goitered neck, concealing the swirling, purple reminder of his long-awaited eccentricity of superiority.

The sun is setting on Konohagakure, because the wrong people will live to see tomorrow.


	6. Edge

**Author's Note: OK, THIRD UPLOAD. No formatting, sorry, guys, 'cause I'm about to throw a rock at this computer screen. **

**Anyway, enjoy the chappie! Sorry we deprived you for so long... -bows- **

* * *

Neji makes light conversation, and Lee makes for the shadows, avoiding any gaze that might fall on him. He and Tenten are sweating, filling the auditorium with the stale stink of fear. Aiko can smell the salty droplets soaking into Lee's collar, and it begins to perturb her until she notices a much more gleaming aura of tastiness for a beast who consumes goodness.

A large scar pulsating at the base of his adam's apple, Naruto Uzumaki proudly steps into the arena, scratches like tattoos or souveniers of one of many battles for his life striping his forearms. Sakura slides behind him, like a sluggish shadow; and the third member of Team Seven, looking freshly washed and ever as composed, steps up behind them, one hand on his hip and the other clutched in his mouth; the freshly-bandaged absence of his left pinky finger is giving him such exquisite pain that biting his knuckles seems to be the only way he can concentrate. But it's Naruto who draws her gaze- Naruto who is sunny and pulsing with something Aiko just doesn't get, something beyond her and within her at the same time, screaming to get out. He is dark and light, rage and blackness covered lightly with false confidence and ignorant, brilliant faith. She wants what he has; without knowing him, or much else about Uzumaki Naruto, Aiko of the Sand knows this deeply, clearly.

Sasuke's stub of a finger is bleeding, tantalizingly, temptingly; but already she can't take her eyes off of him.

Aiko, it must be reflected, always gets what she wants. It's the blood of the Kazekage in her; the real bakemono roiling within her veins. Naruto is about to meet the monster.

* * *

_Yi, er, san…_ Gai counts down in his head, in the old tongue of his fathers and their fathers. Nobody speaks the truth anymore, or this language of the quiet, the unseen.

His students are really beginning to worry him. He's going to go ask Kakashi out for a training spar, but he beats him to it.

"The kids are back," the normal half of Kakashi's face appears to say, the corner of it hidden behind the door. Gai hops up from his push-up position (at only 1,873...darn) and takes a moment to shake loose his limbs. He knows it's not the time to ask, but he does: "How did Chisato-chan do?"

Kakashi looks into the distance for a while, seemingly searching for an answer in the whitewashed laundry lines hanging as far as the eye can see from Gai's window, across the universe. Konoha is really a small place, when you think about it; everyone knows how Chisato does, what she's done and why she and her parents don't get along. Except, Kakashi has reflected- himself.

"… I'm going to find out, whether she wants to see me or not."

"She was…"

"She was my daughter," Kakashi cuts him off, and then raises his stiffened half-limb with a ghostly calm. "And then she met the monster."

* * *

But Chisato is engaged before Kakashi is even halfway to the arena; when he reaches the door, it's just in time to see Temari skate beneath the narrow edge, between the ground and the unforgiving edge of a blade, then disappear and swiftly manifest, somersaulting like a gracile…something, through midair. Like a woman, because only a young woman like his daughter could be so magnificent and beautiful.

If he said this, her eyes would just harden; that's why they've stopped, he and Rin. Now they're waiting for their little girl to come back from the dark edge, for her to become a Chunin or die or come wandering into the hollows of their arms with never-ending tears.

Slash; the narrowing of air being cruelly cut. Temari dances onto the edge of the tanto, shifts her weight. The blade goes flying from Chisato's hand, her dark fingernails scraping the blade's collar. Her dark hand flies out with a knowledge of enemies far too old for her eyes, and Chisato finds her weak point. Temari is hit sharply in the center of her chest, and the satisfying crack of bone echoes through the stands in a way that doesn't just speak of finality, but defines it. They are held at a standstill for one, long moment, before one girl falls. Standing over the crumpled form of her opponent, Chisato looks down on her with a steeled but uncertain expression, the hatred in her eyes that of erstwhile soul and a learned Shinobi.

"Hoooo-wee," Kiba huffs. "What a fox."

"Are girls all you think about?" Hanabi asks rhetorically, rubbing her painful wrist.

"Well at least I like girls, unlike Mr. Shounen Ai over here-"

"Your misgivings towards my sexuality are amusing at best," Shino murmurs, clutching Temari with his soft-brown gaze. "I'd correct this false idea of yours, but it's much funnier to leave you fearing that I might be 'checking you out'..."

"Shino! The little ears-""Little ears, my ass," the younger girl frowns. "Stop picking at each other! You're worse than-"

Her words are cut off by the scream of the viewing board; the exams succeed quickly, ironing out the unfit before the watchful gaze of the Sandaime Hokage. He knows something is off- like a proofreader who senses an error but can't locate it in a mass of uninteresting text. He's watching, for sure- but the safety of his village depends on how fast he can find this one cereal flake among the raisins; the one Waldo that doesn't belong.

Sarutobi needs to find the monster- he has the feeling they've already met, in some peacetime that was more of a dream of a dream than he could have believed before today.

* * *

Naruto massages the scar beneath his throat, swallows to make sure it's real. He wants to go home, despite what he told Anko and the medical ninja; he wants to go home to his small room with Akiyama sleeping peacefully on his left, the blanket pulled over his head and the shade open to let in cricket-green moonlight, sea-green silence from a distant world. But he's here; Sakura is being called, he's having some doubt; without even thinking he reaches out and grabs her hand- when she stops he clenches her fingers within his, trying to carry the spark from his fingertips between their eyes. Sakura flushes bright pink, trying not to belay any feeling, but Naruto's worry touches her heart. He knows something is different in her, but what he doesn't see is that it's for the better. No matter…she'll just show him.

The pink-haired apparition hops down into the circle of steel, facing her opponent. A cheer as distant as a bird cry resounds; from somewhere comes the call to arms, and then from nowhere appears a fear she's never known.

All the strength she's gained from watching Naruto fall drops into the soles of her feet, and she barely bounds out of the way in time. Instantly Sakura is caught in a two-step, dancing past an endless barrage of outspoken sand, whispering as it were her demise every time it leaps forward. When the onslaught stops she is winded, and pauses to gaze upon the form of her enemy.

Naruto can't unclench his hand. He can't let go of this essence of her, this little remain of her that's still within his grasp. Sakura is going to die. That, that unholy thing in the center of the field is just playing with her, dancing her around like a marionette on a string; look, she's running and running, her dress flying and tearing as the soulless sand snatches for her- the desert scrapes at her peachy flesh, erupting black with life, and he can see it, how much this girl is enjoying this. Her hollow-eyes, black-rimmed and full of the antithesis of life…they're full of a joy that's almost an insult to joy. Naruto has never had an inkling like this in his life. Never had a girl like this, never had a feeling of truth in this way.

Sakura didn't shake his hand away. She didn't leave him during the chaos of the forest, and was there when the darkness lifted, watching; watching over him with emerald eyes now harder and stronger than diamond.

By hormones or by the desperate love he's blessed to know, through his younger brother and his adoptive mother, Naruto has just discovered, in a moment unnoticed by anyone but him, the monster that will take his life.

* * *

The bite comes again, pulsing with pain; Lee shudders. It's almost sensual, the rushing of poisonous harm through his veins. His blood is malignant now, he can feel it; and it's the sweetest-tasting poison he's ever dined upon. Everyone is having their silent revelation, he's thrilled to see; he's thrilled to know that nobody else on earth can see this mark on him, this secret that will garner faster results, after all, than training up to become a prodigy in an art form that doesn't want him.

In these secret times, Lee really believes that he couldn't achieve that kind of greatness on his own. But nobody knows- nobody knows. He could laugh.

A snakelike flicker catches his suddenly-vigilant eyes; there, the far Jounin, behind Gai-sensei. He's about to open his mouth when the creature slides one, knotty finger up to it's driftwood lips and makes a single sound that sounds ridiculously loud in Lee's ears.

Shhhh…

As suddenly as the noise began, Lee finds himself standing in a quiet grove of woods, no hair on his head unshifted. Before him stands a young woman with a wild red flame of hair erupting from beneath a severe-looking headdress. Lee could almost think she's beautiful, if his mind weren't so pleasured by the anger racing through him.

A low hum he hadn't recognized quiets; Tayuya opens her eyes. "Buck up, dumbass. I'm here with your marching orders…" she honks, the sound about as beautiful as the miserable honking of geese.

"Where is- Lady Orochimaru?"

"Pah. Orochimaru's no lady, even if he does dress like one…I'm guessing Sakon and Ukon didn't fill you in entirely." Posture tentative, the sable-haired boy looked upon his addressor with apathetic bewilderment. The woods sung around them.

"Orochimaru-sama's off…preparing a special something," Tayuya finally decided, after chewing on the words for an instant. Her grin smelled deceptive. "You're going to win the Chunin Exams, to the last fight, hear?"

"Every single-"

"Yes! God, you're like a damned parrot…" the woman swore. "You're gonna end up in the final arena, period. That's all you have to do for now. Do not fail Orochimaru-sama."

Muscles bunched; a tight smile graced Lee's raw lips. "I wouldn't dream of it. He has given me a privilege I can scarcely begin to-"

"Ugh, and how you ramble…" Tayuya sniped. Bending over swiftly, the girl lowered her face level with his; Lee leapt fairly a mile when her grey hand manifested in the thick, black hair matted to his temple. She stroked his head once, twice, with the loving ferocity of a mother who wants her child to know that she has the power to destroy life as well as create and nurture it.

Her tanned cheek close, Tayuya grinned with inexorable glee and muttered: "If you fail him, you'll be begging to die... Hang in there until I know more, okay?"

The monster panted within him, for the lust of touch and the lust for power.

* * *

Slash. Flank. Shoulder, shift right, kick. Dodge, counter. It was a waltz without end, a dragon's dance of will meeting the impervious forces of nature.

A substitution jutsu exploded from the exosphere; Sakura screamed down from heaven with the cry of a vengeful angel. Her feet clubbed together, she tumbled through open air and slammed down on Aiko from above. She tried not to hear the apathetic sand shield, blunting her attack. It was no use; this kunoichi was just giving her the run-around, waiting for Sakura to exhaust herself.

Tasting metal, Sakura paused, heaving; the girl readjusted the hitate-ate on her slick forehead; her brain felt as though it were ready to explode. This was a death wish, a wet dream. Impossible.

But the thought of failing, after she'd vowed over Naruto's half-dead body, seemed more despicable.

So she kicks; she fights. When blood splatters the arena the audience is silent, like playgoers who have just seen the protagonist, a female Hamlet who has yet to avenge, slain in the midst of the scene. Naruto is the first one down beside her, trying to snatch her flailing arm to control the sputtering of an artery; the first one to draw up into her wide, pupil-less eyes and realize that his life has just begun.

The first one to injure Aiko since her birth, as she stares at Naruto as though he were some kind of rare wild animal, waiting for a reaction. She falls back, into black confused space, as red chakra screams from Naruto's being and propels his fist, faster than doubt or the Ichibi, into the girl's bony face.

* * *

"What was that sound, Orochimaru-sama?"  
The man merely smiled at Kin, huddled as she was over Zaku's still form. He will wake again, screaming because his left eye no longer exists; Kabuto will then be employed, but for now, Orochimaru-danna will let her have her comfort.  
He ignores her question; The Noise and his partner calmly circle the fern-lined mulch pit of a manicured walking path outside, their shadows dark against the sandstone pathway.

"We can't afford to stay here very long," the gruff voice comes from the smaller form; and he's not talking about economics. Beneath a peasant's cap and strands of false, black hair, Akasuna no Sasori's eyes dart like amber lightning bugs in the shade. His taller walking mate is dressed in a plain-looking women's kimono, with a black and red patterned obi belt tied in a petite box knot behind; blond hair spills down his back, catching sunshine and holding it prisoner. The untrained would suspect merely a young woman dressed in formal clothes; the astute might see a cross-dresser. Anyway, they're great disguises. Something only Deidara could come up with.

"Relax," the ice-eyed Akatsuki whispers seductively. "I just wanna see how My Girl's grown since we last met…"


	7. FadeToComeBack

**A/N: I'm probably dropping readers like flies because I'm so sporadic with the updates; I hate it, guys, I'm sorry, but is still an important release for me...when I can fit it in around classes. Just know, your reviews still mean the world to me, and every view helps. Thanks, again.**

**So, recap: Rock Lee has the Curse Seal that should have been Sasuke's, and is now turning into a total, evil sh*thead; Gaara was born a girl, Temari wants to be a proper sister; Naruto was adopted by Anko, who was married to Iruka and produced a son of his named Akiyama; Hinata, kidnapped by the Hidden Cloud as a toddler, has had her memory wiped but is rebelling against her station; Tenten was a child of nobility, who's parents were murdered by Deidara, who is now at the Chunin exams obstensibly to provoke her; Sasuke is getting beat up in every chapter but is going to figure in the end _in a really big freaking way_, so don't lose faith in me, now.**

**Ahem. Enjoy.**

* * *

"Aiko, let me get at it- Aiko!"

She mumbles something, bares her teeth against the rag; Temari can feel her sister's hot breath through the fibers of the cloth. It's like the Shukaku itself is breathing into her hand- the moment slows, stops. And then she throws Temari's hand away with a vicious yelp, a snarl, a pair of wild, honey-colored eyes without love in them. The water in the basin swills dangerously; her eyes fix on it, and Temari moves it. She knows her without speaking. She knows what it feels to be Aiko.

But Aiko can't imagine what it's like to be Temari- the sister watching her spiral down into animal fits.

"Aiko, please…Please listen to me. Just let me wash off your face-"

And it's not that her sister shrieks, or snaps out her arm to catch flesh; it's not that Aiko pushes her away, or that the basin dislodges and pours across her lap, soaking Temari's white dress to her thin legs. It's that Aiko doesn't_look_at her before she swings; Aiko isn't a girl but a _monster_ like they all say, a demon creature that recognizes none and is happier for the fact. Temari is just a sack of blood to her. It. HeSheIt.

Nothing good comes from the desert; nothing that can't be blown away or chipped down to nothing by flying sand. Temari had always hoped she was stronger than that.

She knows she shouts something; she knows that Aiko drools and screams back in the bijuu's timeless, rusty voice; then the door has slammed and Temari is curled at Kankurou's feet, under his stricken gaze, pouring out all the love that she can't give to her siblings because of _him_, because of that horrible man-

"I just wanted to wash her face, I just wanted to wash her face…" she keeps weeping, but by now Temari is completely outside of herself. Aiko is screaming behind this wall she feels and the other one she can't, and she just wants to break down the damned thing and save her, her little sister, Kankurou, all of them-

She knows what it's like to not own your body or mind.

* * *

Naruto's fist is squirting blood, which a light-haired woman is bandaging with a disinterested look only in her eyes. Rin, in her spotless uniform, assures the blonde boy that Sakura will be fine, because she will be. There are severe breakages, and her cheekbone is fractured; she's covered in 'road rash', from being dragged by the sand, but Sakura is a strong girl. Rin can see it in the eyes (her little bird eyes, black buttons blinking, blinking Morse code-). Sakura will recover, from the injuries and the despondency. She will have Naruto by her side.

Girls in this world don't need much to get by, she thinks, watching Chisato's back disappear (she didn't even nod at her mother). This she knows, beyond a doubt. They always make it back; it's the kunoichi credo.

There's no time for heart-to-heart in the ring; there's no time, in fact, only the markers between minutes, the hitches between breaths as names are called and fates are sealed. Rock Lee; this instant. That's all there is.

He swings his lanky fists like wrecking balls ready to bust something up; he stands in the arena and tries to look impressionable, tries to hide how high he feels and keep all of the pride from exploding through the top of his black head like a golden volcano. Rock Lee versus Uchiha Sasuke, a name he knows because it's a name he hates.

Sasuke, bloody bandaged hand and all, saunters down the stairs and into the killing field. He wants to look sore, to make Lee impetuous and faulty- but Lee knows. He can see right through this act, and he can't help but smile at Sasuke as the match begins.

Lee attacks first, to keep his underdog, 'go-getter' image; it's all about lies now, until he awakens that seal. He punches, his limbs feeling as unbreakable as iron. Taijutsu, his home; three steps, kick, block. And then-

"You can do it, Lee!"

The sound makes him jerk his head up and scan the stands; but no one has spoken. Gai-sensei mouths the words to him again, his placid face sun-tanned and already so, so old. _You__can__do__it_, Gai whispers to him. Believes.

Lee doesn't have time to comprehend this before another wave of pain shoots down his spine; he wretches, tries to forget that face; succeeds. And makes his move.

In the sparest second, Lee reaches out, and the fight stops; Sasuke's foot is in his bandaged, training-scarred hand, and the power is overwhelming. It ebbs, veiled by a pain unlike anything else, but it is _there__- _he wants to weep and to kill and to maim and be happy all his days because it was _there_ inside of him, this confidence, this ability-

This power.

Scrunching his thick eyebrows, Lee snatches Sasuke's toes and slams them backwards, in one swift motion, until they touch Sasuke's shin. The Uchiha doesn't even have time to scream, before this ne'er-do-well (never again) shifts onto one foot and PAHNG!- A kick to the chin sends him flying like a navy missle, tumbling through open air. Lee is on him before Gekkou can even open his mouth.

He's not sure if it will work, but anything is possible right now. As Sasuke scrapes his miserable form across the ground, Lee makes a few unsteady gestures, fingers crooked and unaccustomed. For once, the energy roils up at his call, working to form…can he do it? Can he really-

"Bunshin no Jutsu," he whispers. He sees smoke, and then his own face; a doppleganger with eyes full of rage, ready to take him out.

The doppleganger smiles with him; responds to his nod; knows that it's short life has purpose, meaning. It knows that Lee intends to kill today, and that their journey has just begun.

Lee and his twin leap.

* * *

"That boy of yours was spectacular, Gai."

"He had even the Kazekage shaking in his boots!" they laugh; congratulations all around, you've created a monster. Ha ha, great job. Thanks, he says, and slaps their backs back. Thanks.

He wants to hope for the best: that Lee's ability to use chakra suddenly awakened on the field, and that this boy will finally open up to having a teacher. Gai hopes that he's not too late to get into this boy's life, to ask Tenten what makes her so dark. Gai's had a revelation today: he knows so little about the children placed in his care. It seems like he's been distracted by something- but what? What's kept him from getting to know these kids, these baby Shinobi who are growing up so slowly…

Oh, that's right. He doesn't want to be around when they finally reach the ceremony of maturation. It could be in this exam, or on a mission; after a village bombing, or in the blackened wake of another Kyuubi. It could be years from now, but it's coming: their awakening.

Gai has dreaded so much the day that these kids will awake to find the Shinobi life a reality, not a dream or a game. The day that their friend comes home with a new, red eye and half of his body given over to the death that almost caught him.

The day they lose themselves, or someone just as good.

* * *

Tenten's head is to the concrete. They're going to be here forever… Lee calmed down quickly after Gekkou called 'time', called Sasuke a living stain on the ground. He has _not_been doing so well in this competition…Tenten's sick of looking at him, this sad excuse for a jaded survivor, because an avenger should be _more_, so angry that his fury makes strength. That's not Sasuke-

Or so everyone thinks.

Tenten's mother is like specter, ever just within the line of touch, just over her shoulder or within an inch of grasping. That's how she enters her consciousness; tippling, causing her arm hairs to quiver. The world shovel-pitches, and then-

"Your students are doing well, Maito Gai," the tall woman proclaims, her voice too loud for this solemn arena. Gai shifts to view her with an awkwardness apparent immediately; this woman is so. Freaking. Ugly. So freaking ugly that one can't help but belch acid into their mouth at the sight. Gai is caught totally off guard.

"Ah, thank you, madam- and you are?…"

"Uchihanatokisetsu. Tsukiko." Deidara bites off, adding a first name for convenience; he'd had to adlib an identity.

"Uchihanatokisetsu-san…"

"Please, call me Trudy."

"Okay, Trudy…" Gai continues, looking slightly miffed. Tenten's buns are overheating against her head; great, more weirdoes like her teacher. Maybe Gai would take this one on a date, it'd help him to get over-

"Your little kunoichi will be the last contestant in the prelims, I hear?"

"Yes- it seems that Tenten will face one Akimichi Chouji. Right over there," Gai pointed helpfully. Trudy Uchihanatokisetsu-san didn't even glance in that direction; his hairpiece was loosening.

"Well, how sweet!" 'she' trilled, pursing her thin lips; a shudder ran down student and teacher's spines, quite possibly the first emotion the pair had shared.

"It's a shame I'll miss Tonton's battle! Still, I wanted to tell you how _utterly_ stimulating your students were to watch!"

"Umm, thank you…" the man begged off; sweat was now pealing from his forehead. Gai's attacker took immediate leave of the pair, however, flouncing off towards an exit with gay, fluttering sleeves and a spring in her step that caused more than a few heads to turn. Tenten felt as if she'd just been bathed in fish guts. She needed a shower. And soon.

Continuing to trounce to the beat of his own drum, 'Trudy' beebopped outside, taking the stairs two at a time. Sasori, still disguised, was waiting at an empty street crossing, as planned. Deidara popped up happily to his side, smiling even as his makeup began to run in the intense heat of the afternoon. The preliminaries were nearly ended; soon all of Konoha would be bedding down for sleepy-sleeps, their well-worked young Genin-promises ready for a long rest.

"… We came all this way, and we're not even going to watch to see if she's 'the one'?" the elder grumbled.

Sasori was giving him 'the look'; Deidara just laughed aloud- and again, his head tilted to the sky.

"Oh, I have eyes everywhere- don't you worry, Sasori-sama… my sleeper agent is right in that room, watching her every move. If she so much as sneezes the wrong way, I'll have her."

Silence; the wide blue sky met Deidara's ice-colored eyes and blended seamlessly, like the end of a rainbow. There was hardly a scrap of sanity in those eyes.

"… Yes, I'll have her: body and soul." he finally muttered.

"I'll have your head, first," Tenten affirmed; with a deft slash of a cloistered kunai (her nindo, her vow-), the pathetic fallacy of an identity fell away. Iwagakure's most artistic, savage nuke-nin's muscled back stared back at her. The roil of his porcelain neck melded up from the shreds of his disguise, unspeakable even amidst ruin, and met a strong chin, full lips- and lurid eyes, hell-eyes that had seen the depths of things the unartistic and the unbeautiful. Deidara- a fine, textbook work of art in himself; arrogant, handsome, very ascetic.

Tenten had never wanted to destroy something so beautiful, so badly.

* * *

**AN: Revieeeeeeewwwwwwww...**


	8. Near

**A/N: I just love this story. I do. There's something about the way I sit down to write it that keeps it fresh and new every time. I cannot deliberate on the plot; I've always had a vague idea of what's going to happen, but the ideas flow in when I can finally tap into the zen space of me and Microsoft Word. I wait all week for the time to write, and I'm never disappointed. This is why I write, I realized today. Whoo.**

**... Again, sorry for the delay. Enjoy, everyone!**

* * *

_Lady Hinata,_

_It gives me no small amount of grief to be deprived of your presence in the village, but I am more than happy to extend the services of our country for your safekeeping while you attend the rest of the Chuunin Selections. _

Not a word about her failure to make it through the Forest of Death trial. Jerk-off. He probably set it up that way.

Gilt and tassels; sighing the shoulders of her robe down, Hinata feels the weight of a day clinging to her scalp. Even her hair feels heavy, and yet she has done nothing today. Nothing but wait. Oh- and plan.

Yes, keeping a secret _is_ quite taxing on one's nerves… For her relief, let us reveal her burden:

Hinata of the Hidden Cloud Village had found a man she could truly love, and was planning to stay with him forever.

She was banking a lot on the supposed kindness of her fiancé; no man, let alone a Kage, could be pleased to find out about the betrayal of a female he was even mildly passionate about- what are half of country songs written about, anyway? Hinata could have lived all this time under his virile pall without ever truly hearing him speak; besides a few brief meetings at functions, their main communications took place in the form of letters, which, for all she knew, could be penned by the malicious hand of a trustee to the Cloud waiting to catch her in a lie or disgrace her for political reasons. She had no earthly idea of what could happen to her, should the Cloud village discover her infidelity against the lot she was born to; but she was nonetheless determined to do it. She would no longer remain the powerless pawn of a country shaded by eternal, stormy mists and ominous tectonics. She would become a better Shinobi here (the second part of her plan) and train with great masters by using her Kumogakure connections , and as she did so apply herself to the tending of the real means of her escape.

She had chosen him for the look that overtook people when they spoke of him; he was a genius unparalleled, a prodigy of one of Konoha's most illustrious families. The scandal wouldn't rock his clan's reputation, should he fall by her charms; indeed, Konoha could be expected to protect his choices and defend this certain, future asset to their safety, most certainly. It all seemed to work out, and not even in the deluded stream of conscience which affects smitten females. Indeed, Hinata's heart was hardened towards him; he would have to melt her regard to prove his worthiness of her gamble, and if he did not- well, she still came out in the end with a nice vacation to Konohagakure.

He would be pale, strong, handsome. Yes, this Hyuuga Neji fellow seemed genial enough to be easily swayed into love with a girl as beautiful and mysterious as Hinata…

* * *

Things were tumbling through infinite space; meteors, comets, bullets in the sky. But the earth was solid, unknowing, unrelenting of it's secret history of impacts. Some bomb in space could have been trailing steadily towards the fringes of the atmosphere at that moment; the world could have disappeared in a spectral flash of fire hotter than the sun, and no present being that afternoon would have known until it was too late.

In Konoha, people were too busy watching for other kinds of death from the skies.

The wings of Deidara's bird slice through the houses lining the street as if they were made of butter. When those mighty clay wings retract, the feeble bricks and mortar hold their form for a few seconds, too shocked to deduce the destruction to their structures- but they do succumb, with a crashing like stone waves on a gravel beach. Dust roils; there are no animals in this neighborhood, because every smart canine and equine on this block can sense a disaster ahead of time. They have since the beginning of time; they commune with death on levels man cannot because of our constant jabbering, and so they know it when it's coming.

They would sense the end of the world before any of us did.

The flaming cloud skirts around her, chaos, but Tenten falls into stance. Her world is finally at rights, with steel against her supple fingers and vengeance waiting to be plucked from before her. She waits for the creature, for it's wary, earthy face to shine down like a slimy sun from high above her. Deidara straddles his clay figure's bulbous head, rocking to the currents of the high sky; assessing, from behind his impertinent cloud of blonde, flowing hair.

Tenten doesn't wait any longer; she hits the stack of rubble, smacks her sandals and shoves off with all the power in her taut body blasting her skyward. She is a flash, a comet falling from the blue sky, with a celestial tail of a scroll suddenly enveloping her. It's a summoning, he has time to notice- before the length of the aged paper explodes with a hail of arcane looking knives and clubs, needles and throwing stars. She holds the very stars in her palm, right now- Tenten is going to kill the man who killed her on that day so many years ago.

Fighting in the shade: that's what Deidara will be doing. The beating trail of his teleportation is dotted with kunai knives and thin _washizuke_ sticking up to their tooled hilts where they strike. His left hand moulds a jutsu, while the other one sweeps a heavy shield over his form. The blue-eyed teen emerges, shouting, from his haven with greasy earth bleeding from his palms. The mouths on his hands, small beings he couldn't forget if he wanted to, begin their unholy work; and there, another work of art. Something that looks like a plated dinosaur (it's all about interpretation, after all-), with a tail that launches a hail of hardened, plaster spikes right back at her floating form. Tenten's supple arms merely call forth another pair of scrolls; they envelop her, they make her disappear. The knife at the nape of his pale neck almost shocks him- almost.

Whirl; stab, place that foot carefully. Exploding spiders forming at his command; a bratty little kunoichi with iron eyes to keep him busy, meanwhile. She pulls a bo-staff from nowhere on her thin body; blades eject from the ends, and the arm he drew back to dodge is nearly scratched. Dammit. She swings, reaping; and then disappears, exploding in his periphriary in a whirlwind of chain and edgeless steel. The infinite flurries of the sun off of a pair of scythe, chained at their bases, rush to meet his face. Deidara's spine bends, automatically; his head and his hips ache when he bends over completely backwards, head on the ground, to miss the attack. She is much faster than he expected, and much better than he ever dreamed. She's actually got him in a corner.

A death grip, is more like it; she crashes into his legs without the finesse or concern about form that might restrain a sated and confident older Shinobi. No; she's a desperate little girl, only allowing herself to pant once she's knocked him into a tucked roll across the bird's back and begun to stab. She's mad, she's aflame, she's lost, so lost in finally striking back. Before she knows, he has stopped moving, and she is still screaming at the top of her lungs, a horrible sound you'd expect to hear from the bottom of a well, or from the lonely edge of space.

"Excellent," a disembodied voice appraises. With that, the chop of an unseen separates the vertebrae of the young girl's neck, striking the vital give of her innermost nerves and fading the hateful world to black.

Deidara lifts her without compassion, and disappears before Sarutobi can even climb up from his official seat at the Chuunin Exam Center to begin to protect his precious village. It's already half-gone anyway, Deidara would have been happy to tell him that day.

* * *

The list that would define the futures of every Shinobi gathered comes down to nothing more than entropy:

Uzumaki Naruto vs. Sabaku no Aiko

Nara Shikamaru vs. Sabaku no Temari

Rock Lee vs. Hyuuga Neji

Aburame Shino vs. Tenten

Sabaku no Kankurou vs. Dosu Kinuta

There's a month between for them to bandage up all the broken things, and pour into the only currency of these dark, rolling days: power, strength. And for the one who couldn't pay up when the time came…well. We shall see.

* * *

"Ani," is all Akiyama can say when Naruto and Anko do come trudging up the path, a mumbled prayer into the bandage against the blonde boy's neck.

Naruto does not bend, like a tree that has weathered a storm; instead he lifts the boy up into his suddenly-strong arms, and lets him hang like a little lost monkey from him, scraped legs wrapped around his waist. Naruto clutches the sleepy-smelling auburn head of his brother his palm, and looks with the pain of maturity into his mother's plum, plumbless eyes.

Oh, how he is growing up before her, she thinks; this little man with Chuunin eyes before her, who doesn't look like he could be silly if he tried.

* * *

Dawn. Lee has not slept, and knows not if he has screamed all night, or not at all.

Tangled in sweaty sheets of fever, the boy clutches his neck and gums the raw, stale air again. His teeth feel like they've been filed to points; his knuckles raw and stinging, and the pits of his limbs aching with a hurt that seems impossible. He senses that he is delirious, which means that he's not delirious enough to have stopped comprehending reality. That's all he wants, now; not a glass of water, not Gai's kind palm to cool his radiating forehead, or the worrying eyes of his dead mother. He just wants to be mad and be done with it.

But he's bitten off this sweetmeat, this poisoned piece of birthday cake and now he has to swallow it. Even if he feels like he's choking to death on something sweeter than sugar; remember, he has to remember the strength, how it felt to declare 'no' to one of the many people who tried to halt his progress. The mantra pulses with his thick blood, no more, no more, no more, through his head-

Even if he's choking on it, he's got to remember that it's the sweetest cake he's ever tasted.

A knock sounds at the distant door.

* * *

The reeds sing pleasantly in the breeze, through the tendrils of his hair and into the universe beyond. Shikamaru knows the calm of the afternoon, and he knows that it restores better than anything else.

He also knows that there's a form in the shadow of the brush, and he calls her out from the dark to face him squarely.

Long, porcelain legs; grungy-white clothes; a pert shape budding with womanhood, and at it's zenith the deepest set of eyes he has known. For a moment, Shikamaru drops his guard, wondering less about her motive for finding him and more about the forever-nothingness in those bottomless, black eyes.

His is the only name in Konoha that she knows; so she goes to Shikamaru to weep, because she cannot go to the people who are supposed to be her family. Her sister is gone, she tells him, and she doesn't think she ever had one; or a brother or a mother, and especially a father.

Temari betrays the Sand that day. They walk to the Hokage's office in step, with her stance somehow leading all the same. Halfway there, Shikamaru timidly reaches out to touch her hand; Temari finishes the embrace, knitting his tanned fingers with her own, sun-burnished ones and clutching tightly.

* * *

"Kill her," Baki says. "We can't have her endangering the plan."

Neither Aiko nor Kankurou reply. One of Temari's siblings studies the moon; the other pensively looks into nowhere, trying to remember a time when death has been unwelcome before.

When Temari opens her door that morning, it is her brother's sorrowful expression she sees; a face full of regret and love that might have been, as he stretches a thin wire between his fingers and asks her with his eyes to keep quiet until his task is complete.

Aiko goes for a walk, down to the river.

* * *

"Six! Did you see that!"

"Nice, Aki-kun!" Naruto affirms. If their smiles were beams of energy shot straight at each other, Akiyama and Naruto could have leveled their world with one glance. Naruto is glad to be back, where he belongs. He turns that powerful, whisker-lined grin in her direction, and Sakura melts a little more against his arm.

Akiyama, rolling his eyes, pitches another stone into the gaping stream at his feet. He will give Naruto and Sakura peace for some time, but the knowledge of their coziness as they watch from the bank is a huge bargaining chip in the world of brothers. He doesn't mind skipping stones while his brother takes a minute; after all, Naruto has been these since before Akiyama began. He has always been Akiyama's world, the axis on which all of his young hopes wobbled. Naruto is as constant as the mourning of the moon and the drawl of the tide; and nothing can change that, this young boy promises himself as he hurls one more smooth stone.

Plip; one, two, three, four circles appear on the water's quietly hectic surface, and the ripples fan out with ethereal grace.

Aiko watches the slim rock's dance across the surface; hears the 'plunk' as it disappears from sight forever, another one thrown into a current it cannot imagine or begin to change. Arms crossed, red shocks of hair crashing to split-ends on her shoulders; her arctic eyes tracing up in the failing sunlight, searching for a glint of blue in the perpetual night that has been her life.

She's searching for the passion in Naruto's eyes again. She has to see it to believe it, she's decided.

* * *

Neji is simply walking home when the scarf dances across his vision. He whirls, unsure; sure enough, a golden cloth is dancing on the wind, billowing with the grace that only a thing that can fly may possess.

The cloth sashays over the top of the tall grass; winds with the breeze over the filthy sand; it's mesmerizing changes of shape drawing his long, white gaze until the graceful hand of a courtesan interrupts it's progress.

Standing down the road from the girl as she deftly winds this living shawl around her white shoulders, the Hyuuga family's hope meets the girl he was never supposed to; the girl who should have the power to cripple him via a curse mark that Neji is missing. The fate he should have had, in his cousin's charming face; the world in her grasp, his heart in her hands immediately.

"Hello," Hinata simply says. Neji is speechless, because he's meant to be. He's meant to be a great Shinobi, a symbol of progress in the altered history of the Hyuuga clan. He's the reason that Hyuuga Hizashi killed his own brother one night long ago, when the Main Branch's first daughter was kidnapped by…who knew? Everyone had been conditioned to forget the girl who had been Hinata. To the current leader of the clan- Neji's father, the second twin- the Main Branch was as good as dead.

Boys are meant to fall in love. The lies of their society and their families, however, aren't supposed to ruin it in the end.

* * *

**AN: How far any of the pairings in her go will really depend on how the readers want it... Relationships are pretty weird to begin with in the Naruto-verse, so god only knows how amok I can run with them. -giggles- I love the spin Hinata puts on the 'entitled princess' stock character; she's like every other female filler character, and yet- and yet, I have such plans for her. -more giggles-**


	9. Going

**AN: Yes, I know, FINALLY. I was so blocked on this chapter, though. Gomen nasai. _**

**Quick reminders, since it's been so long:**

**Gaara was born a girl; Temari has betrayed the Sand; Rock Lee has the curse seal, not Sasuke; Naruto was raised by Anko, who has a son with Iruka; Deidara killed Tenten's parents, so she's now an avenger a'la Sasuke. Sorrysorrysorry...**

_

* * *

_

_Dink, dank, donk._

_Plitter, platter, plonk._

_Drip, drip-_

_Oh… is that your blood, or mine?_

* * *

Answer: neither of ours.

Purple pinwheels; Orochimaru likes them, finds himself lost, as he rarely can be, within the careful cycle of it's wheeling limbs. He hates watching repetitive things- and yet there seems an inherrant danger to every pinwheel; that perhaps it is about to tumble out of careful order, for no reasons but it's own.

Orochimaru knows better than anyone that reality is not static, and that even the most careful pinwheels can tumble out of sync; plans can tumble out of control, and playthings out of the universe.

"Pinwheel, pinwheel, burning bright, in the shadows of the night…"

Orochimaru wrote that poem, in his universe. He spins the pinwheels deftly, watching, almost waiting for them to spin out of control.

It's ever so interesting when they do, isn't it?

* * *

There will be no Exams any more.

There will be no Shikamaru versus Temari, because there is no Shikamaru; he is tearing through the foliage, chased and angry and his stomach a rock, the angel-pressure of her hand burned into his. He is dripping sweat and chasing death- and death is chasing him. The Suna nin are after him in a hoard, four of them dispatched after one genin. It'll be child's play; the last game Shikamaru ever plays, if they'd have it their way.

He lands against a tree branch, and feels the katana go through parts of himself that he imagined impenetrable; how often do we consider the duality of the shoulder, it's give at the mere pressure of a steel blade?

Pinned to the tree, Shikamaru gazes up at the sky one last time- and then bites down on the smoke pellet, spewing purple poison from his ringed mouth. He's the bait. He's the diversion, so Temari can soar over the cloud and maybemaybe do something.

Maybemaybe they could have been something- but there's no 'maybe' about whether she's worth it. It is Shikamaru's first and last love, all vaulting through the sky like a fast-forward sun through a grim, grey sky. He looks for the girl with the sun in her eyes- and then he's gone, just as the three-headed Hydra snake crashes through the village stronghold.

The invasion of Konoha has begun prematurely. No one but Shikamaru is ready.

* * *

After the days and days of solitary solidarity, her touch comes as the greatest surprise in the world; he can feel the ridges in her skin, the valleys of her fingerprints as she clamps down on his clammy shoulders, shakes the olive blankets away and drags him into the light of a half-lit room, his skin breaking out in icy droplets of sweat.

"Get up," Tayuya says, and it's not a command; it's a sick statement, in a world where grammar doesn't matter.

Get up. Go out. Kill. They don't need to be commands; it's what's in their souls, branded onto their bodies in Curse Marks and scars.

* * *

"Idiots… Idiots!"

The marble table shatters; such a pretty piece of furniture, but with weak legs. Weak legs, kicked out from under them by a mere girl-

"Bring her head to me," he says to the air, which rushes to heed his command. Orochimaru is supreme ruler of the Western Skies, the god of wind, the god of snakes and vengeance and-

"One girl," he murmurs, pressing a finger to his thin lip. One girl.

What on earth could Deidara have wanted with that one girl?, he wonders…

* * *

"Neji, what's going on!" she calls, panicked, scraping the rubble around them.

Neji doesn't answer; his glazed eyes are locked on the sunny ceiling, following the bent shrapnel that's protruding from his unmarked forehead.

Her hand is still knit with his. He didn't even have time to startle, the dignity of watching his death coming-

One down, a village to go- Lee punches his exit into the wall of the arena, and heaves out, saliva gushing down his bare chest. It hurts, it hurts so much-

… But it feels _so good._

* * *

"You need to leave me here, I'll be fine-"

"Like hell I would!" Naruto shrieks over the roar of the giant monster, it's three unholy heads shrieking skyward and renting outer space. Sakura stumbles, still so weak- but Akiyama catches her waist, supporting her like a four-foot-tall, living brace. Brother and brother, arms linked around her, trying to save her from the death that's all around.

Akiyama doesn't ask what's going on; he knows that this is beyond them, and that this is their future. This is a world that was not supposed to be. His brown eyes tremble to take in the snake, but they are steeled-grey over Iruka's loving brown.

"Aki, take her to the bunkers that your sensei told you about." Naruto says, his calm boiling like a pot on heat, quivering at the radiation all around.

"Naruto!-"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE," is the last thing he says to his brother, before Sakon and Ukon come, rambling in unholy unison, down the lane like toothy demons out for a turn in their natural element: destruction, horror, a fear so metallic that you don't realize it's blood until you've already been stabbed through by it.

"Get the fuck out of here, get the fuck out of here," is what he says when Sasuke rounds the corner behind him. Naruto has time to turn and face his teammate, his friend, his-

The flames spiral down from heaven, unspeakable and beyond man or god; Sakon and Ukon go up into the black belly and are consumed, moths so stunned by their trip into the light that they cannot even scream as they are flayed alive by the undying fingers of Amaterasu. Naruto is staring into Sasuke's bleeding left eye, staring into the star at it's center, the Mangeyouku Sharingan that nobody told you Sasuke had.

A hand, from the darkness of the world they see as light, finds the boy's shoulders. Fingers crawl up it, two, three, four- and then emerges a tall form, a lanky form rankled by sickness and a heaviness that comes only from the anticipation of death, of living in death.

Uchiha Itachi grips his younger brother's shoulder to steady himself. He has no idea what he is looking at, you see- Itachi's eye sockets are empty, emptier than his eyes were before they were gouged out.

* * *

The city is in worse-than-shambles; any familiarity is gone, any resemblance to the quiet village they have known. Balls of flame are raining from the sky; hell-monsters are crushing houses with people in them, limbs are hanging, waving, screaming, being consumed. It is the end of the world as Gai has known it.

But it has been for a long time, he imagines- and he could have stopped it. He could have stopped it, if only-

He dies in mid-step, eyes somehow finding her meandering form. "Tenten," he says, as if to accustom himself to her new presence. "Tenten- TENTEN, TENTEN!" he screams, and tears after her shambling form.

She is weighed down by an unholy burden, a world strapped to her chest by black bonds of energy that pulse in time with her thin body like worms engorged upon her heart. Tenten is walking, but she is really quite gone already- she is halved by a fear more fearful than fear; a grief more certain than life. She is stumbling through Konoha, still in this man's command.

She always has been. The life that is flashing before her eyes has been drained by the desire to kill him, to avenge the horror he bestowed upon her, a child tainted.

… How could she have been so stupid?

Gai shoots out of the flames, calling her name. His arms are open. Why? Why could she not see the embraces and run to them? Why does hindsight have to be 20/20, and why do we love, why do we love when we can only lose?

Why did he have to destroy her, that day?

Her mouth is copper, her tongue iron, heavy in her mouth. The world moves in slow motion; Gai's huge strides leaping over piles of destroyed lives; the little boy with a girl twice his size bent, unconscious, over his young shoulder; the final leer of his ice-eyes in the clouds of hell above.

Tenten screams Gai's name, as the bomb implanted within her body by Deidara combusts in an unspeakable whiteness. Whiteness, great- to wipe everything away, their lives _and _their regrets.

* * *

"Come," is what he says, and come is what Naruto does. He comes to the end, comes to another pile of rubble just like the rest that is somehow different; somehow containing his whole world and simultaneously scattering it to the farthest reaches of the world as he does not know it.

Akiyama's breath is only Sakura gasping beneath his prone body; when she sits up, Akiyama falls against her chest, his charred skin barely flush with life. He is burned- horribly, horribly burned. Naruto can't even tell how badly, because he has no time.

There is no time. There is only Itachi's hand on his shoulder, and Sasuke's trembling form beside him.

"My brother- my brother-" is all he can say; he's clutching Akiyama to him with all the strength he can, as if he can squeeze life into existence like a god closing it's fist. Somehow it does- Akiayama startles alive, for an instant, his tiny body beyond shock. He is dying, is Naruto's only thought.

"Come with us, Naruto, and we will explain," the blind man says, his fingers trembling on Sasuke's shoulder, his eyeless sockets staring through Naruto's head, past Akiyama and into the innocence imploding as Sakura hides in her own lap, her face blackened by burns.

The world swims, blotted by tears. "My mother…"

"Come with me," Itachi says plaintively, beckoning with one hand. "And we will do what we can."

Anko in his eyes, Naruto glances over his brother's burned scalp at the madness around them- and then, finally, slowly, he takes her in with the horror, his blue eyes full of it. "Come with me," Naruto says to her, and Sakura has no choice but to do just that.

None of them do…because the pinwheel's spinning off it's axis.

* * *

She crests over the canopy, too paralyzed to pant. Temari is one of the few things she is certain of at this moment, because the world is falling apart around her. She has betrayed her country, and they know- they are searching for her, they want to take her and-

Well, we can't imagine what happens to traitors.

Ten, in a ring; her fan swings, one aubergine moon leering at the enemy. She has been taught well; she's old enough to remember their mother, and to remember the secret their father is keeping from Aiko. She remembers love, and that alone is carrying her through this warzone, has carried her through years of trying to connect to her sister, through years without the love she deserves.

The cyclone around her sends their lithe bodies flying into the air; they rebound, but she is gone, leaping again into oblivion. She can't lose them; she can't defeat them on her own. Who has a choice? Who's blood is that?

"Find her," Shikamaru murmurs, his voice dry as death. He zips in front of her, mutters this in the fleeting second as they pass within proximity to one another, bound by a faith that they cannot yet describe.

"Find Aiko. Find Aiko, and wake her. I'll find you, I'll find you…"


End file.
